Bitcoin Will Probably Never Reach $20k Again

Cryptocurrency investors and believers in the blockchain love to talk about a future where cryptocurrency overthrows traditional fiat currency and Bitcoin becomes the one true global currency that cannot be manipulated by the Rothschilds and Federal Reserve.

It's hard to deny that in 2017 cryptocurrency for a brief moment in time broke into the mainstream, and it garnered excitement. Eventually, it turned into a gold rush and the talk at the family dinner table was what the price of Bitcoin was instead of how your day was.

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If you've been watching cryptocurrency prices you'll know that 2018 hasn't been good for Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general. Since the beginning of the year, we've been in a prolonged bear market.

If you frequent cryptocurrency circles, then you'll be more than aware of the circle jerking that goes on, actually, it's more like excuses as to why the price isn't going up and these delusional investors make themselves believe it.

• Bitcoin can only ever go up.
• After tax season it will go back up. People were just taking out money to pay their taxes.
• Institutional money is flowing in.
• A bull run is about to start, moon lambo HODL.
• Once an ETF is approved the price will go up.

I am not an economist or financial expert, but I've been doing a lot of reading and keeping my eyes on Bitcoin since 2015. Suffice to say, I don't believe Bitcoin will reach $20k ever again and if it ever were too, it wouldn't be for at least another 3-5 years (which is like 10-20 years in crypto).

The writing is on the wall. Many projects ran ICO's in 2016/2017 and we are going to start seeing these companies run out of money shortly, you only get one shot at running an ICO. I don't think I've ever seen a project run multiple fundraising rounds, not without hurting existing rounds of investors.

ICO Bubble

You often see people declaring a bubble for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, usually, it relates to people buying Bitcoin and the price rising way above what it is worth. As people sell and cash out the price drops.

We are witnessing the beginnings of a crypto bubble as we speak. It has not happened yet, but the number of initial coin offerings we saw in 2017 raise insane amounts of money is pointing to only one conclusion: a bubble implosion.

Most of these ICO projects are going to fail, the ideas are either too ambitious or the project owners themselves just dragged the chain for way too long expecting the market to go up and that they could make money trading their treasure troves of Ethereum.

Too many barriers to entry

The one problem with Bitcoin is that the barriers to obtaining it are high. Traditional fiat currency is easy to get, you can sell some junk at a yard sale or on Craigslist and get cash. You can get a new job and have it deposited straight into your bank account.

For Bitcoin, you have to go through an exchange, but before you can even buy it, you have to jump through a strict AML/KYC verification process that is stricter than a traditional bank account and more invasive than applying for a mortgage.

Seriously, I joined an exchange last year and they made me send them a photo holding up a sign with a sentence written on it and a randomly generated verification code. This was on top of needing to send a utility bill with my address on it, a passport scan as well as a copy of my driver's licence. And then, they had to call me and ask me questions on the phone.

That is a lot of hoops to go through just to buy a volatile and slow cryptocurrency with high fees. And once you're in, you experience so much pain from watching the numbers jump up and down you question why you even invested.

Once you get through the arduous verification process, you're done, right? Wrong. Then you have to potentially deal with banks either completely disallowing cryptocurrency transactions or routinely flagging them and making it an inconvenience to buy cryptocurrency.

And yes, I know people like to point out Bitcoin can be purchased from non-exchanges (over the counter) or from a Bitcoin ATM, but you do know anyone who has ever bought Bitcoin over the counter before? I don't. And those Bitcoin ATM's still require verification, they're not anonymous.

Manipulation

This is one aspect of Bitcoin that will never truly be solved: manipulation. As an investor you're not contending with other small-time investors, you're competing against organised pump and dump groups, disinformation and smear campaigns from the likes of Jamie Dimon.

And if you truly think that this is a solvable problem without removing the one aspect of Bitcoin that makes it appealing to some, anonymity, then you're crazy. Without regulations, I could Tweet right now that I have knowledge of an ETF being approved and mislead a bunch of people without recourse.

This is why Bitcoin will probably never seen an ETF, the manipulative nature of cryptocurrencies makes it harder to regulate against abuse and behaviour that is illegal in traditionally regulated markets. Although, it doesn't stop the delusional investors from believing otherwise.

Conclusion

The honeymoon period is over. Some made their millions, others lost millions. While I believe in the true long-term future of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, I don't believe we'll see $20k ever again or if we do, for quite a long time.